Ah, it’s that hallowed eve when the law goblins come out to play, wreaking  havoc and terror wherever they go.  

They may keep us up at night.  They can even cause our insurers to quaver. 

There are many nightmares you could encounter when you visit The Haunted House of Legal Horrors.  

So beware the darkness, my friends.  

Don’t say we never warned you – one of these things happened to a friend of a friend of mine….  

• Remember that guy who called you once in 2010, but hung up on you before you got his name? Well his Statement of

Emond Montgomery Publications, a respected Canadian Legal publisher, has a super resource available (with a free login and password) for going from a legal word to sources of legal commentary.  It is found on the EMP website using the “Click for free legal glossary” link in the site header to get to the Glossary of Legal Terms.

Unlike many legal dictionaries, the terms are not just defined, or defined using judicial decision references, rather the definitions are derived from within the catalog of Emond Montgomery Publications.

Following the source links under a definition will net you possibilities for purchasing …

The search functionality on many websites is dismal, and in sometimes it is non-existent. If you are looking for something on a specific website and can’t find it, don’t despair, Google comes to the rescue.
You can use Google to search within a specific website by preceding your query with “site:SpecificSiteURL” [substitute your URL and don’t use the double quotes]. For example, to find the retainers on the practicePRO site, type “site:practicepro.ca retainers” in the Google search box [don’t include the double quotes].
You can also search within a specific type of site by doing the following: “site:edu …

♫ I let it go and now I know
A brand new life is down this road…♫

Lyrics and Music by: Avril Lavigne, Chad Kroeger and David Hodges and recorded by Avril and Chad.

To paraphrase an old saying, everyone talks about how their inboxes are overflowing but no one actually does anything about them.  Well, almost anyone that is.  I had a conversation with my colleague and friend Debbie Foster at the Pacific Legal Technology Conference  earlier this month and she told me she has a policy of never leaving her desk at the end of the day …

Yesterday I whined a little about how hyperlinks and convenient search tools may be making for lazy researching. Today’s Tip is a reminder about how to search for judicial consideration of a statue section without using those convenient tools in CanLII, Quicklaw and Westlaw .  If you are looking for cases that consider section 119 of the Health Professions Act, RSA 2000, c H-7 you could use the legislation note up shortcut tools that are provided with your favourite service OR you can search within any full text case law database with this formula:

“name of act” /10 #

Stated …

With DSLRs, it has become very easy to fill your SD or memory card to capacity. Many of us have will have found ourselves deleting pictures when we run out of space. Doing this in the middle of a photo shoot is fine. However, if you are taking a bunch of pictures off a memory card, remember to reformat the card. This wipes the card clean and will remove all picture and camera data. Simply erasing your pictures can leave data on the card and can make it more likely corruption may happen. For this reason when you take pictures …

Lawyers’ online biographies – they really do make a difference.

The 2013 In-House Counsel New Media Engagement Survey includes a wealth of valuable information on the current state of the legal profession’s online activities and attitudes. Among its key findings is the vital importance of lawyers’ online biographies  in the hiring decisions of corporate in-house counsel. While personal referrals were still viewed as the most important component in corporate counsel’s hiring research, lawyers’ website biographies were the next-most important criteria, with 91% of survey respondents viewing online biographies as either very important or somewhat important in their outside hiring decisions.…

I like to learn from others. Stories and experiences and pain points that are described by other people inspire ideas for projects or methods that can be adopted to make things better/faster/more efficient in my organization.

Conference attendance is an important aspect of group interaction for me. There are other ways to connect with groups rather than in person.

• Newsletters and other reading material from special interest groups
• Local events
• Webinars
• LinkedIn groups

What is your favourite source for inspiration from a group?…

Microsoft will no longer be supporting Windows XP SP3 (Service Pack 3) and Office 2003 (SP3) as of April 8, 2014. After this date there will be no new security updates, non-security hotfixes, free or paid assisted support options or online technical content updates from Microsoft. Your computer will still operate, but if you continue to use Windows XP or Office 2003, you will become more vulnerable to security risks including harmful viruses, spyware, and other malicious software, which can steal your personal information or destroy your data. For this reason, you should immediately start planning to migrate to more …

♫ Password, please use the password
It opens the door to my heart…♫

Password, recorded by Kitty Wells.

The writer spoke yesterday at the Privacy and Access 20/20:  A New Vision for Information Rights‘ workshop on Legal Ethics dealing with issues of privacy, security and technology for lawyers and their clients.  The writer spoke along with Dr. Benjamin Goold, Associate Professor of Law and Associate Dean Academic Affairs, University of British Columbia and Tamara Hunter, Associate Counsel and Head of the Davis LLP Privacy Law Compliance Group.

This workshop was part of the pre-conference sessions …